Hello, Bridge Town Church. This is Tyler Stington of Oaks Church Brooklyn in New York City.

If you're anything like me, you've been through a number of COVID phases by now.

Kind of like the stages of grief. Pete Hughes, a friend of mine, shared this insight with me that's really stayed with me.

When a community of people experienced crisis or trauma together, they're typically three stages.

First, there's that heroic that the human instinct to rise to the occasion, which is mostly willpower.

And willpower varies with person to person depending on discipline, resolve, pain threshold, and that kind of thing.

But the one universal truth is that regardless of the person, willpower is a depleting resource.

So inevitably, the heroic eventually gives way to the second stage, disillusionment.

Grief, numbing out, turning inward, judgment, anger, paralyzing levels of empathy.

There's an endless variety of the expressions of disillusionment.

But at its core, it's honestly admitting to myself, I want out.

I'd never choose this, and I'm not enough to rescue us.

I'm helpless, and I'm stuck here.

And that drives us into the third phase, which is hopeful rebuilding.

But hope only comes to those who have patiently, fully experienced these first two stages.

Now my journey along that path has been long and slow, and not without getting lost and stepping on a few thorns.

But somewhere in the late summer, I think I arrived at hopeful rebuilding.

And when I did, I found prayer language in the form of Psalm 108.

And so I began to pray that Psalm every day.

And every morning, I'd make a cup of coffee, take a step outside, just breathe for a minute,

and then begin to pray these ancient words.

My heart, oh God, is steadfast.

...